As many devoted computer gamers may be aware, the overall interactive entertainment of a computer game may be greatly enhanced with the presence of realistic visual effects. However, creating a robust and flexible visual effects application that is also computationally efficient is a considerable challenge. Such visual effects applications may be difficult to design, challenging to code, and even more difficult to debug. Creating the visual effects application to operate realistically in real-time may be even more difficult.
Today, there are a number of off-the-shelf visual effects applications that are available, liberating many game developers, and other dynamic three-dimensional virtual environment program developers, from the chore of programming this component, themselves. However, the integration of a visual effects application with a game model that describes the virtual environment and its characters often remains complex. An improper integration of the visual effects application with the game model may be visible to the computer gamer by the less than “life-like” appearance of a character, as well as other non-realistic visualizations, reactions, and delays. For example, research directed towards examining human ability to spot non-life-like approximation of a face found that the eyes, and specifically proper glint and shadowing of the eyes, are crucial to presenting believable virtual characters and drawing an emotional response from a player to a virtual character. Such visual artifacts tend to diminish the overall enjoyment in a virtual environment. Therefore, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.